Disclosed herein is an apparatus and method that disk stacks and compiles media sheets in a system that transports printed media sheets from a media transport onto a media sheet stack.
Presently, in electrophotographic and other printing systems, an image is typically recorded in the form of a latent electrostatic image upon a photosensitive member. The latent image is subsequently developed on the photosensitive member by applying electroscopic marking particles, commonly referred to as toner. The toner image is then transferred from the photosensitive member to a media sheet, such as a sheet of paper, a plastic sheet, a transparency, or any other media sheet. The transferred image is then affixed or fused to the media sheet, for example, by using heat and pressure applied using a fuser assembly. The resulting media sheets are then output onto a stack in a stacker.
Reliable and robust stacker modules are required for production printing systems and other systems that transport media sheets onto a stack. The media sheets can be compiled or transported onto a stack using a disk system. Some printing system users may also require a stapling or stitching capability for finishing document sets of media sheets. The users of such systems may further require automatic handling of sheets that are printed and then compiled, such as by collating, finishing, fastening, and other compiling methods. It could be highly desirable from a user workflow perspective to provide a finisher destination that has both stacking and set finishing capabilities. Otherwise, the customer is forced to pre-select finisher destinations based upon individual job characteristics. Unfortunately, while disk stacking can be used for either stacking or set compiling, current systems only offer either pure stacking or pure set compiling, but not both due to space, efficiency, and other constraints.
Thus, there is a need for an apparatus and method that disk stacks and compiles media sheets.